Electrified fence gate

Abstract

An electrified fence gate including a tensioned flexible support wire extending horizontally across a fence gate opening, at a height greater than that of vehicles normally intended to pass through the opening, a series of spaced gate wires connected at their upper ends to the support wire and depending closely adjacent but not engaging the road surface, and a fence charger operable to charge the wires with a shocking electric charge. Vehicles, insulated from the ground by their rubber tires, may thus pass freely through the gate without stopping, merely deflecting the hanging wires, but any livestock attempting to pass through, being grounded, will receive an electric shock whenever they touch any of the hanging gate wires, and hence be driven away from the gate.

What I claim as new and desire to protect by Letters Patent is: 
     
       1. An electrified fence gate comprising: a. a single flexible electrically conductive support wire extending generally horizontally and spanning a gate opening of a fence above ground level, said support wire being secured at its ends to elements of said fence but being otherwise unsupported,   b. a series of flexible, electrically conductive gate wires each connected at its upper end to said support wire by means operable to permit free universal pivotal movement of the former relative to the latter, and additionally operable to permit swivelling of said gate wire about its own axis relative to said support wire.   
     
     
       2. An electrified fence gate as recited in claim 1 wherein said means connecting each of said gate wires to said support wire comprises: a. a swivel body member,   b. a pair of swivel wires disposed in end-to-end generally coaxial relation, their contiguous ends being engaged in said swivel body for independent axial rotation, the outer end of one of said swivel wires being formed to present an eye loosely engaged about said support wire for free universal pivotal movement relative thereto, and the outer end of the other of said swivel wires being connected to the upper end of the associated gate wire, and   c. a pair of stop sleeves carried on said support wire respectively at opposite sides of said swivel wire eye, said sleeves being originally movable along said support wire but being fixable thereon by crimping thereof to engage said support wire tightly.